Today,
on the 2400 block of Elm Street is the Lions Inn Motel. The Lions Inn Motel
seems oddly out of place next to apartments and single-family homes. Other businesses
on Elm Street are more to serve the neighborhood's needs than the needs of people
from out of town. Forty years ago, when it was called the City Center Motel,
this one level motel must have fit right in with other tourist commercial activities
such as Ted Stuart's Service Station and Bill's Market. The postcard of the
City Center Motel from the 1950's declares "Elegance without extravagance."
Some modifications have been made to the motel, such as covering the brick with
tan stucco and removing the pole supported covered walkway.

As it left to Bellingham, Highway 99 created a boost for stores along Northwest
Avenue as well. By 1935 there was already a Hi-Way Market and Grocery Meats
just a short distance south of the Bellingham Auto Camp. Ten years later the
new neighbor to the Hi-Way Market was the Hiway Barber. In 1965 the motels flourished
around the Hi-Way Market, but the barbershop was gone. Today, because Northwest
Avenue is one of the interchanges off of Interstate 5 a significant amount of
commercial activity still exists. None of the 5 motels that were once there
show any traces. Two have been demolished or moved within the last five years.
The Northwest Motel with log cabin units, shown in the archived photo, was torn
down in 1995 and a credit union went up in it’s place.